


anywhere feels like home (in the daylight)

by Analinea



Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [10]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Day 14, Fire, Gen, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Is something burning, Malcolm Whump, Respiratory Problems, Whump, Whumptober 2020, also combined with day 16, and I'm not saying that because the theme was, at least it's consistant with the show i suppose lmao, because prodigal son imma right, everyone else is mentionned, i'm pulling a episodes 11 to 12 here, i'm sorry I don't have much time, skip the aftermath and go straight to everything's good, this is my burn out fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27005539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: What’s more tempting than the forbidden? Especially when it’s the tether to sanity, no matter what everyone else believes.
Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947337
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	anywhere feels like home (in the daylight)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a song called Daylight probably by Matt and Kim I think, I don't have spotify open atm

What’s more tempting than the forbidden? Especially when it’s the tether to sanity, no matter what everyone else believes.

Malcolm needs to solve cases; people flag that as an exaggeration, don’t understand he isn’t being dramatic. What he never wished to be was contrary. He’s disobedient, can be a little shit without trying hard– but a source of worry for his parental figures? That’s an accident. 

He’s talking about his mother and Gil, of course. His father, from the confines of his well-furnished cell, sounds elated by his son’s career in brokenly grasping for the cliff’s edge. It might be a rare delight, he supposes, to have someone broken up in building blocks for you to play with. 

He tries not to give Dr. Whitly the satisfaction. 

So Malcolm has been barred from working on a case until he’s had at least five hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours. Thing is, his words aren’t trusted, so even if he  _ had _ slept that much they wouldn’t believe him. 

Maybe they’re trying to force him to sleep that much every night until there’s no circles under his eyes, their size a measurement that would be more accurate. But though five hours is a low bar, Malcolm would never be able to reach it. There’s no bribing him into taking care of himself in that. 

He would love for sleep to be that easy. 

At the back of the station, there’s this tiny closed room: an office turned closet turned archives, then forgotten about. Piles of dusty or water damaged boxes balance precariously on every available surface. A few inches of desk are free, taken up in part by a lamp so old Malcolm isn’t sure it won’t cause a power outage when he plugs it in. It doesn’t. It even turns on, yellow flickering light holding after a few seconds of hesitation. 

Malcolm barely has any space to put down the files he snatches up, but he sits and works at fucking up his eyesight in the semi-obscurity. 

His nose itches; he holds the sneezes in so he’s not found out. It’s maddening, but he figures that’ll be his punishment for breaking every rules. He’ll be so grounded if Gil learns about this, he mocks himself silently. 

If only he could go down to the morgue, he mourns, as he dives into the case. But he’s been discovered there last time and Edrissa is a  _ very _ bad liar. And very distracting.

The silence is good for focus. It offers a virgin space for his thoughts to disperse in, mingle, come back tied together. It’s white noise in his ears, slowing down the beats of his heart. It bears down on him like a weighted blanket. Folds around him. Constricting–

Malcolm shakes the bad feeling off, flexing and extending his fingers to chase away the stiffness. 

Funny. He breathes in, breathes out, stretching his back as he looks around: the lack of windows seems obvious now but he hadn’t even noted it before.

He might need some air. He sneaked in, he can definitely sneak out and do it again. Just five minutes, take a break, self-care right?

He gets up in one swift move, bangs his head on something that has the texture of a too full cardboard. “Ouch,” he mutters in vexation, squinting as one hand goes to rub the back of his head and the other goes to map his way out.

It bumps into something solid, too close to be the wall. He must have hit his head harder than he thought because when he looks around he can barely see anything, so he runs his fingers along the obstacle, finally finds a corner. An inside corner. “What?” he whispers, tremors taking up his exhale and his hand both.  _ No _ , he thinks, logical mind clinging to its seat. 

Malcolm’s head tilts in a sudden twitch when he follows the next wall behind him, finds another inside corner, another soft wall. Then another. Then back where he started. He’s trapped.

“No,” he says out loud this time, the word bouncing dully back to him; he turns around on himself once more, quickly, twice more, thrice, ever faster, breaths matching the rhythm of his crazy dance. 

He doesn’t stop, he falls down in a space barely big enough; he’s compressed, legs against his chest, knees under his throat. He stops breathing. “Please!” he shouts, knowing no one will hear him. No one comes around here. No one except an eleven years old boy who will forget about him except in nightmares.

Malcolm reaches up, needing to feel over him the space he occupied before, but he hits something just past the top of his head. 

He screams. 

Malcolm hates jolting awake unrestrained: he’s exposed to every danger, every desk corner and sharp object around. Two mercifully almost empty boxes fall down on his head when a pile clatters to the ground– he consoles himself with the fact that, at least, there’s no stairs he can hurtle down from.

His confusion slowly abates, leaving him backed in the far corner of the tiny space, chest heaving. 

Okay, he’s got this, he thinks. There’s a heavy fog in the room, thick in his throat and stinging his eyes, and Eve –dead, murdered Eve– is looking back at him over her shoulders with a roaring smile. 

He frowns. He doesn’t understand. His hallucinations are always very lifelike, but the muffled alarms don’t make sense. The smoke doesn’t make sense; he’s not even investigating an arson case at the moment. 

“You’re on your own now,” Eve says, sad eyes on him before she vanishes in the fog. “You need to save yourself,” her voice echoes in the memory of another hallucination.

He rises to his feet, catching himself against a boxes’ pile –one that leans on the wall, thankfully– and wonders why he hears nothing else but alarms and fire, no commotion, no shouts. Why no one came to get him, considering the loud tumble of the boxes. And his own scream, probably. 

He can’t say if his throat is so raw because of that or because this smoke is real.

He ponders all that while trying to get to a near indiscernible door; a feat that would be made easier if the floor ceased to slide away under his feet. 

He coughs. Grabs his phone on the way; he can barely see the screen. Drops fall on it when his eyes start to tear up, and he blinks until his vision clears up enough. 

How long has he been asleep? He has no idea what time it was, before.

He can’t hear himself breathing over the fire– no one ever said how loud these were. He has to hurry. 

The door swims away, but Malcolm counts two more steps; meanwhile, he’s hitting speed dial on Gil’s number. 

One step– one ring. It’s getting hard to breathe.

Two steps– two rings. He coughs.

Gil picks up as Malcolm puts his hand on the door and withdraws it quickly with a cry; it’s scorching hot.

“Malcolm? I can’t really ta–”

“Gil,” Malcolm hacks out, starting to grow desperate. You’re not supposed to open a door when it’s that hot, but there’s no other issue. 

“Malcolm,” Gil starts fast and low, knowing him maybe a little too well, “Malcolm, tell me you’re not in there. Tell me you’re not inside the station right now.” 

Malcolm can’t stand anymore. The way he breathes in fastidiously, it could be answer enough for Gil. Malcolm sits down, back to the desk. “I’m sorry,” he says on an exhale because he knows Gil’s tone of voice when he’s distressed. A gasp to add, “I am.”

He hacks once, twice, tears spilling down his cheeks. He’s so sorry.

He can’t hear Gil’s answer. Maybe because he couldn’t hold the phone to his ear anymore. 

He can’t see anything– his eyes are closed.

His lungs hiss when he breathes in. Out.

Then they stop.

Every time Malcolm coughs, he gets worried looks. It’s funny until it’s not, but at least it doesn’t last too long. And he feels he has no right to be annoyed this time.

He bears through the constant surveillance. Gil’s worried check ins. His mother and sister coming around at every hour of the day. He even accepts to rest up at home for another week after being completely cleared for work by the doctor. 

And he’s not bored anyway: Edrissa loved playing spy for him and get him copies of the latest case files, once they’ve moved to a temporary work space and life goes on.

Dani catches him at it, but she rolls her eyes and puts her hands up to signify that it’s not any of her business, when he starts asking her not to say anything. When he comes back to work with a solid lead on the case, JT hands a quid to her and grumbles.

Malcolm laughs. 

He might have new nightmares and still way less than five hours of sleep a night. 

But at least he has them, when the sun is up.

That’s better than anything forbidden.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [hurtlr](https://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com/tagged/ana-writes-sometimes)
> 
> Kudos and comments light my fire haha


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